The Ninth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2003 - 2004)

The Survey questionnaire consists of four parts dealing with information, primarily statistical, on the main components of the criminal justice system (police, prosecution, courts and prisons). The Ninth Survey covers the period 2003 - 2004.

The questionnaire is compiled so that it can be broken down and sent to separate agencies for response and reassembled in the central responding office before it is returned.

In completing the tables, respondents were provided with the following suggestions:

If figures provided in one table differ significantly from one year to the next, please explain the discrepancy in notes to the table.

If it is not possible to supply the figures as classified or defined in the tables, please try to adjust data as far as possible and describe the steps involved in notes to the table or on the facing pages.

Where figures are not yet available, provisional data or estimates, if possible, should be inserted and noted accordingly.

If a table can be completed only in part, please note in the appropriate section that the rest of the data are "not available".

If no figures at all are available, please indicate by writing across the space for reply "not yet available", "not tabulated" or "not collected", as the case may be.

In most cases, the data requested use the calendar year as the recording period. Where some other annual period, such as a fiscal year not corresponding to the calendar year, is used, this should be noted.

Statistics on such matters as criminal justice personnel, court actions and prison population should extend to all levels of government, that is, central government as well as national, state and local authorities.

UNODC has confined itself to reproducing the figures as received on the questionnaire forms.

The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic.

UNODC would like to thank all contributing states and their corresponding agencies for their cooperation, which made it possible to produce these statistics.

Responses

The release of responses to the Ninth Survey as of 30 September 2007 is available in table format. Responses are presented for variables 2.2 (Police recorded intentional homicide, committed) and 15.1 (Total persons incarcerated)